Providing good jobs and fair pay
Being sustainable isn’t only about our planet, it’s about everyone we share it with. At Naked Sprout we are proud of our green credentials when it comes to the energy we use, our raw materials, and how we transport our products. But to be truly sustainable we need to make sure that our company is making good toilet paper and tissue products at the human level - providing good jobs with fair pay.
The first week of November is Living Wage week in the UK, so we’re taking the opportunity to highlight how we guarantee and assess working conditions through our supply chain, and the steps we take to make sure everyone who makes your toilet tissue, kitchen towels, and boxes of tissues takes home fair pay.
We are one of a few toilet roll manufacturers in the UK who are registered as a Living Wage employer, so we’ll start with our team at home.
Working for Naked Sprout
When we talk about our team “at home,” we mean it quite literally. Our small UK team handles our accounts, marketing, logistics and customer support from home offices, spare rooms, and kitchen tables in Brighton, Dorset and Glastonbury. We are in constant contact via calls and messages, and meet regularly in person for coffee and meals.
Every member of our team is paid at least the real Living Wage, as set by the Living Wage Foundation. This independent organisation promotes fair pay across the UK, calculating the real Living Wage - an hourly rate calculated based on the current costs of expenses like rent, food, transportation, and childcare.
Currently, the real Living Wage is £13.85 per hour in London and £12.60 per hour across the rest of the UK (these figures are adjusted annually). This is more than £2 higher than the UK minimum wage, so a worker with a Living Wage employer earns £16 more over a standard eight-hour working day, and £80 more per week.
It’s a significant difference, and you might not be surprised to hear that many companies shy away from this commitment. Thankfully, over the last 20 years the real living wage campaign has grown, and so far put £3bn back into the pockets of UK workers.
We’re proud to be making the best value toilet paper among sustainable British toilet paper brands without cutting corners when it comes to compensating our team.
But obviously we’re not actually crafting our eco toilet rolls at home, so what about our factory?
Fair wages in our manufacturing
The toilet paper, kitchen paper towels, and boxes of tissues that we sell at Naked Sprout are made at LC Paper, a pioneering tissue mill in Spain. They are partnered with the Spanish equivalent of the Living Wage Foundation, which means that all their workers receive fair wages.
Their commitment to equitable working practices is reflected in the fact that in 2021 they became the first tissue factory in the world to be granted B Corp status. This means they have passed a rigorous assessment that takes into account everything they are doing to protect the environment and provide good jobs.
And they haven’t stopped there, in 2024 LC Paper’s B Corp score actually shot up from 99.4 to 123. They are currently one of only two tissue mills in the world to have passed the B Corp assessment, and they're the highest rated.
Why is it so unusual for toilet paper suppliers to meet these standards for environmentally and socially responsible production? A lot of it comes down to the environmental footprint of manufacturing, but wages are another factor.
Factory jobs are often considered low skilled, and underpaid as a result. This is particularly a problem in the fashion industry, where garment workers and machine operatives work long hours, often in dangerous and unregulated workshops, for wages that remain shockingly low, before big brands slap their logo on the goods they make and sell at a premium.
Companies who accept and profit from this kind of imbalance are contradicting themselves. If you stand by your products, stand by the people who make them.
Without the people who operate the machines and staff the production lines at our factory Naked Sprout would not exist. Forklifts need to be driven, working areas need to be kept tidy, machines need to be maintained and pallets need to be stacked. The team at our factory carry out these tasks while making sure high standards are met every step of the way. They deserve to be paid fairly so they can support their families, save for the future, and enjoy a decent quality of life.
The region of Catalonia where Naked Sprout is produced is becoming globally recognised as a hub for sustainable manufacturing thanks to diligent, forward-looking companies like LC Paper, and we’re immensely proud to be working with them.
Fair wages for bamboo farmers
We’ve checked in with our UK team, toured our factory, and now it’s time to revisit the root of our business, the forests where our bamboo grows.
We source our bamboo from the vast forests of Sichuan, China, where bamboo farming is a crucial part of the regional economy. Bamboo is fast-growing, requires no fertilisers, and is naturally regenerative, which makes it an ideal material for eco toilet paper.
But even the most sustainable raw ingredient doesn’t march itself to the boat for transport! People manage the bamboo forests, harvest the stalks, and process it for transport before it makes the journey by sea to our factory.
We’ve always cultivated strong relationships with our suppliers, and have purposely kept our supply chain small so that we can monitor it effectively. We currently have just two suppliers, both of whom are certified with the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC), meaning that they are certified for workplace safety and fair pay. Like any FSC-registered supplier, they are regularly audited to make sure they are meeting their internationally-recognised benchmarks for environmentally appropriate and socially beneficial forest management.
Our founders Leila and Tom visited our suppliers this Spring and, as well as catching up with the team at their impressive offices, headed out to the bamboo forests to speak with some of the farmers there. We're particularly grateful to Mr Xu and Mr Zhang, who shared their years of experience cultivating and cropping bamboo and gave a full account of the growth and harvest cycles of this remarkable plant.
Cultivation and harvest continues for nine months of the year, pausing in July, August, and September when the temperature in the forests is too high to work safely. Work also stops when it rains because the walkways on the uneven forest floor become wet and too slippery for carrying bamboo!
Many of these farmers rely on bamboo cultivation as their main source of income, and our suppliers have been recognised by the government for their contribution to the regional economy. Thanks to the growing global demand for this renewable crop, and the fair wages provided for the people who harvest it, nobody in the region lives below the poverty line.
Conclusion
Sustainability doesn’t just mean green labels and pictures of trees. As far as we’re concerned, making affordable toilet paper in a more sustainable way means that everyone in our supply chain needs to be considered; with fair wages, safe working conditions, and close, ethical partnerships.
From our UK team answering customer emails, to our Spanish factory workers, to the farmers in the beautiful bamboo forests of Sichuan, we do everything we can to make sure Naked Sprout is a positive force in the lives of everyone in our supply chain.
Want to try eco-friendly, high-quality toilet paper that doesn’t compromise on fair pay?
